Song by Paul Oakenfold, with a monologue by Hunter S. Thompson, released on the album Bunkka.
The actual text of the monologue is from Thompson's's 1994 book Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie.* There are a few minor changes to it - the only major one I've noticed is that it sounds to me like he's saying "mouth" instead of "nest", but I'll believe that he's reading from his print version even though "classic case of a smart man shitting in his own mouth" is so much better.
There are two major things this piece makes me think (Well, besides "Oakenfold's still got his groove"). They are "Thompson sure is obsessed with Nixon" and "Thompson sure can write". Setting this piece of writing to music was a brilliant move, as it reads like a sort of brutal poetry. The examples he picks to describe the scope of people this affects, though they have become dated by 2002, are still clever in how they strike the listener as an unexpectedly eclectic representation of humanity. The clarity with which he depicts the vitriolic rage that the memory arouses in him is characteristic of Thompson, and leaves his unmistakable stamp on the piece.
The most unexpected turn in the reading - "his whole life, like a thundercloud, out in front of him" - is just beautiful to me, and every time he comes to that phrase it moves me anew.
The answering machine recording at the start of the song is a nice amusement, and gives us a bit of humorous insight into the process of collaboration on this song. Perhaps it was as simple as Oakenfold sending some of his albums to Thompson's office and getting in return a tape of Hunter reading.
Length: 2:48
Lyrics:
I. The answering machine message
This message is for Paul Oakenfold, uh...
How are you? It's Anita Baymont, Hunter Thompson's assistant.
I'm going through the messages and, um, just getting back to you to let you know that Hunter did get the, uh, CDs.
I've listened to them, and I'm excited, and Hunter's listened to them, aaand...
He's interested, so, uh, we'll give you a call back in a couple days.
Y'know, so, great, so, um...
We'll talk to you, 'kay, bye.
II. The monologue itself
We must revisit this.
Nixon's spirit will be with us for the rest of our lives.
Whether you are me, or Bill Clinton, or you
Or Kurt Cobain, or Bishop Tutu, or Keith Richards
Or Amy Fisher, or Boris Yeltsin's daughter, or your fiancee's
Sixteen-year-old beer-drunk brother,
With his braided goatee,
And his whole life, like a thundercloud, out in front of him.
This is not a generational thing.
You don't even have to know who Richard Nixon was
To be a victim of his ugly, Nazi spirit.
He has poisoned our water forever.
Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest,
But he also shit in our nests.
And that was a crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand.
By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States,
By fleeing the White House like a diseased cur,
Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.
*Source: "Billy Beck", posting in alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater on December 29, 1995; read via http://groups.google.com
Message-ID: 4bvvt3$r8k@firehose.mindspring.com
This posting was also helpful working out two or three words I couldn't hear in the song.